2 Responses to “And we built this world, these rules..”

I don’t think power corrupts at all. I think that this little bit of folk ‘wisdom’ is handed to the powerless by the powerful, to help continue the sour grapes. “wouldn’t you rather be innocent than powerful?” – poppycock! I’d rather be a powerful innocent.

complicated rules. this is so true. the rules are so incredibly complicated, you must live them in order to really understand them. they are everywhere, bound up in every transaction and interaction. but beware: the rules ARE there for a reason. what is this reason? that is a difficult question. but it behooves the cautious being to explore the full ramifications and implications of a given set of rules before disregarding said set of rules.

an unfortunately pertinent state of affairs to keep in mind: the human animal is intent on its own well-being first and foremost. sometimes, often even, the well-being of one being can be drastically improved by a severe reduction in the well-being of another, nearby being. theft. libel. it is to avoid these sorts of vampiric wellness interactions that the rules are obeyed–as far as i’m concerned. the human animal is incredibly crafty, and is continuously coming up with new ways to cheat and steal from its neighbor, and it is only the rules that can protect us, those who do not cheat; we who do not steal.

don’t fuck with the rules before you know all the ways you benefit from them. and if you wish to change them, be very, very careful in doing so. there are roughly 5 billion people out there just waiting to take gross advantage of your ‘utopia’.

i feel where you’re coming from, and i too would wish to create a better place for all of us to live. a place where the pettiness of this world fell away. but the conservatives of the world are not completely stupid. they are not merely blindly bowing to the balance of their checking account: they realize that every change can have an infinite variety of consequences. if you alter fundamentally any one rule, you open a door into a whole new way of the world, and chances are you haven’t fully thought through all the different ways the world can be in this new set-up, because, frankly, it might be impossible for any finite being such as us to fully think through all the different ways any one world can develop.